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Peeta's POV:

Previously:

Gale Hawthorne sat in my kitchen across from Haymitch.

"Hey." He said, looking up at Katniss pleadingly. His eyes flickered down to our linked hands, and narrowed slightly.

All eyes were on Katniss as she just shook her head and for the first time in weeks, tears began to spring up in her eyes.

Whether they were tears of joy or sadness I couldn't tell, but I did know that if he hurt Katniss, he would not be staying long.

The moments that followed were filled with an awkward silence, broken only by an uncomfortable laugh from Haymitch. Gale stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the kitchen floor.

"Katniss…" his voice trailed off, but Katniss just continued shaking her head.

"What are you doing here?" she spat finally. Her words were riddled through with anger, but the end of her question trembled slightly.

"I just wanted to come see my family…and you. Listen, Catnip—,"

"Don't call me Catnip. Go."

He reached tentatively for her arm, but she jerked it away, shaking her head again.

"Go," she repeated, with slightly less venom this time.

Anyone could see the hurt in Gale's eyes, so similar to Katniss's, as he strode past us and out the front door.

Katniss slipped her hand out from mine and walked stiffly up the stairs. I watched her go until Haymitch cleared his throat and, without a word, left out the back door. I turned out the light above the table but didn't go upstairs, not yet. Instead, I sat at in the chair across from what had been Gale's, and waited.

Katniss would need some time. I didn't know if she wanted me to come to her tonight.

But when an hour had passed, I decided it was time that I head up, just to check on her.

What I found was Katniss, curled up on what was usually her side of my bed, tears streaming silently down her face. Quiet for once, I retreated to the stairs, ready to spend the night downstairs.

Just as I was a few steps down, I heard her feet swing down to hit the floor and pad quietly over to the door at the end of the hall, and then she disappeared up into the third floor.

Prim's room.

I follow her up, trying to be quiet, but she hears me anyway.

"Why did he have to come back?" she asks me, her voice surprisingly clear, "Everything was going well."

Her words push something in me, something that no matter how I hard I try, I cannot contain.

Something I thought I had conquered anyway.

My thoughts snarl and twist, and I go from caring about Katniss more than anything to hating her with my entire being, and back again.

I must let out some sort of sound, because she whirls and her eyes grow wide, just as I lose my grip on my edge of reality.

I watch her kill my family, I watch her kill so many people. And I hate her.

It is as simple as that.

"Peeta!" she stutters out, but my hands are already closing around her arms and throwing her to the floor.

She needs to die for what she did to all those people. She deserves to die.

"Mutt!" I yell back, because that is exactly what she is. A crash echoes somewhere in the room.

"Come on Peeta, don't slip away on me like this. It's not real! None of it is real! I'm here, and I care about you and we're okay and Snow's dead!" Katniss's words are frantic, blending together and she splutters them out, backing away from me as she does so.

I blink, coming back down to reality, clinging to my sanity because there's not much left of it of it anymore.

"Oh, Katniss, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

She shakes her head, something suddenly different about her eyes.

"It's okay. I'm going to bed."

She moves past me, saying nothing. I watch her form disappear swiftly down the dark staircase, and I finally look around.

The chair at the little desk in the corner has been overturned. Papers lay scattered across the floor. A porcelain doll lays half shattered in the corner.

Somewhere during my disgusting, unforgiveable rage, I had done all this.

As if Katniss hadn't been hit with enough today already.

I clean the room, setting everything right. The sun is just peeking over the horizon when I sit down in the same kitchen chair as before, still disgusted with myself.

Katniss shows up in the kitchen around 7, pouring herself a cup of coffee without looking at me. I don't have a clue as to what to say to her.

Just a few moments later, there's a knock on the front door. I get up before she can and open it, revealing Gale standing on our porch, hands in his pockets.

We nod curtly at one another, and Katniss appears behind me in the doorway. I hear her take a shaky breath as she steps outside, waving me back into the house and closing the door behind her.

So she's going to talk to him then.

That's alright, I won't pry. Or I'll try not to.

I return to the kitchen, barely resisting the urge to go to the front window and listen to their conversation. She needs space, I remind myself.

But when I hear the yelling start, I cave in. I go into the office and peer through the curtains, and what I see makes me sick to my stomach.

Somehow, Katniss's jacket had ended up half way off her shoulders, where deep purple and black bruises, worse than ever, cover the entire surface of her upper arms.

My mind whirls.

Gale's gray eyes widen then narrow to slits, his fists clenching.

"Did he do this to you?!" he yells at her. Katniss looks stunned, as if she doesn't know what to say.

Who is he?

I can't think. That couldn't be true, could it?

Could I really be that terrible of a monster?

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